Then and Now
by PurpleHam
Summary: Freddie and Sam reflect on how they came to like each other. Their past selves still don't quite get it.


_**Basically, the Sam and Freddie of the past don't understand why the Freddie and Sam of now are in love. A short, introspective look on their feelings. Use your imagination to come up with how past Freddie and Sam got there; I don't have an explanation. ^^; Please let me know what you think!**_

* * *

><p><strong>Then and Now<strong>

He can see it in the crinkled brow and the wariness in the eyes, the look of someone waiting for everything to explode and for the world to go up in flames. This was a look he used to wear almost every day that Sam wasn't dragging him by his feet or beating him over the head with a salami. What he's looking at now is a Freddie before he knew that he could make Sam's eyes light up like sparklers just by tossing an arm around her shoulders and kissing her on the cheek. The little boy he once was can't completely fathom a world where the two of them can touch gently, speak sweetly, and be alone together; but still be essentially Sam and Freddie.

He hasn't said a word, but Freddie knows how he was back then; how he still is, to some degree. Up is up, the sky is blue, and one plus one equals two. It wasn't until he met Sam that everything he knew was right became wrong; everything that was supposed to make sense had crashed and burned under her fists. Up was now fish, the sky was hopscotch and one plus one equaled a dancing Scotsman. What suffered most of all were his carefully-laid plans for the future, especially everything involving Carly, then the love of his life; which he'd calculated down to the last great-grandchild. Shattered. Scrapped. They'd been destroyed so gradually over time, but when he looks back, it all seemed to happen in the blink of an eye.

It is both exhilarating and terrifying when realizes that he can picture in perfect detail every moment he has spent with Sam up to now, but he has absolutely no idea what their future holds.

His own eyes are still staring up at him, unsure and unwilling to let go of what he knows. Freddie shrugs; because he knows himself well, and he knows that he wouldn't understand then what he still doesn't understand now.

"I don't get it," the small voice says finally. Eyebrows wrinkle further in frustration.

The same voice answers back, but deeper and calmer and wiser; the same little Freddie but all grown up. He can't help but grin at his own puzzled face. "You don't have to get it," he says. "You just have to go with it."

"But…" There's a frown as this young mind struggles to find the word that fits this strange, unthinkable reality. "It's…_Sam_."

Freddie shrugs again, and smiles because those words answer everything.

* * *

><p>Meat has always been the answer to all of her problems in life. Mom forgot dinner again? No problem. There's still a half-eaten ham in the fridge from three days ago. Messed up at the pageant? That's okay. You hid a pack of beef jerky in the front of your dress, just in case. Some nerd call you a demon? Just grab that salami off that meat cart and beat him over the head with it. Whenever life managed to knock her down, meat not only helped her get back up, but it also helped her to give life a piece of her mind. She ate it by the pound when she was stressed or upset; and then some, because she was a growing teenage girl. Growing girls need nutrition, you know.<p>

She could still put away an entire ham by herself if she wanted to, of course; but it's even a bit incredible for her to watch that tiny body pack it in the way she does. The bucket of fried chicken she's cradling in her lap looks enormous compared with her small frame. Still, Sam knows that this little mini-Puckett is going to eat until it's gone, and then demand more; because that's how she is. This is how she deals with the idea of a Freddie that enjoys her company, loves her laugh, and kisses her barbecue-sauce-covered lips with a smile (even if he does hand her a napkin afterwards).

On some level Sam has always enjoyed the challenge Freddie provided her. He had this perfectly constructed little world in his mind that she loved to poke and prod at, testing its limits, seeing how far she could stretch it before it pulled apart. In her life, you could only live the dream for so long until something came along and smashed it to pieces, whether it was some unforeseen accident or someone close to you betraying all your expectations. If the castle falls, she learned, go find someplace else to live. Freddie had built himself a crystal palace, a glorious daydream of him and Carly and happily ever after. As far as Sam was concerned, it was only a matter of time before it broke.

Carly's first rejection should have done it. At the time, Sam could already see the shards falling around his feet; his crystal palace a pile of sparkling debris. It surprised her when, instead of cutting his losses and walking away, Freddie began to pick up the pieces of his dream and built it up again, good as new. It never mattered to him how many times he had to pick himself up and keep going; he still did it, and it defied all reason in Sam's mind. Often she wondered, and still does wonder, what it's like to be in Freddie's mind. She wondered what it was like for him to throw himself so completely into a fantasy the way he did.

She wonders now when all that wondering gave way into fantasies of her own; when she started to indulge in ideas that she knew could never actually happen. Maybe she doesn't dream as extravagantly as Freddie, but it was a long time before she allowed herself to dream at all. No white-picket fences or dances in the rain; just a shared apartment in L.A. across from a deli where she works part-time, while he goes to a college nearby. She brings dinner home from work and they cuddle on the couch watching stupid old movies, and it's nice.

She realizes that she's grown to have faith in these daydreams, and also in Freddie.

The first round of fried chicken is gone, and without hesitating, the bottomless pit of a girl pulls a backup bucket from her backpack. Sam smiles; she should have guessed. Mama never leaves home without some backup meat.

"You know that he's _Freddie_, right?" the girl asks, glancing warily at a face that looks far too serene to be her own.

"Yup," Sam answers. "I know." She snags a chicken leg from the bucket, and her own eyes still stare at her with increasing confusion.

"And…he knows you're _not_ Carly, right?"

Sam knows herself well; knows that this question has run through that young mind more often than any other thought, even if the girl herself doesn't know why. Sam smiles again, because it isn't even a question anymore.

"Yup," she answers. "He knows."


End file.
